NASA's ROAD BACK TO THE MOON - Very Big rocket Launch - 2nd Sept 18:48

NASA's insistence on Lunar Orbit Rendezvous was one of many options.

If the objective was to land two men on the moon, the same thing could be accomplished in a single Saturn C-5 launch on a direct flight using either a Gemini capsule or two-man Apollo-shaped capsule. LOR introduced development of an entirely new LM spacecraft, and the complexities of lunar orbit rendezvous and docking - all for the sake of retaining the Apollo capsule design. Use of either Gemini or a 2-man Apollo shape would allow the same mission to be accomplished with the same booster, and a lot more simply and probably earlier.

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Apollo was one of the great technical endeavors of the 20th Century. In the United States, it left remarkably little legacy. The spacecraft and launch vehicles developed at such enormous expense were abandoned and replaced by pursuit of a chimera - a fully reusable space shuttle. For the hundreds of thousands of industry and government workers that contributed to the project, it was one of the greatest periods of their lives. The generation that had learned how to get things done quickly in World War II were again called to action in the prime of their lives. Compare the schedule of Apollo - seven months from the decision to go ahead to issuance of all major contracts for the spacecraft, rocket stages, and launch site - to NASA's current performance. There were giants in those days - we shall not see their like again.